


like we could last forever

by asofthaven



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Confessions, Fluff, M/M, Post-Time Skip, Pre-Time Skip, Reverse Chronology, Sappy, essentially drabbles i liked in one fic, literally the sappiest thing i've written in a long while, spoilers for ch 379
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 01:20:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22307725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asofthaven/pseuds/asofthaven
Summary: Ennoshita doesn't have words, he has emotions. He has birds always mid-flight. He has dozens of cherry blossom petals, caught in the wind. He has scorching sun rays ripping through thin curtains. His hands are illuminated with them.This is a love story, in reverse.
Relationships: Ennoshita Chikara/Nishinoya Yuu
Comments: 14
Kudos: 41





	like we could last forever

There’s a duffle bag on his couch when Ennoshita gets back from the clinic. It’s halfway unzipped, and a beat-up volleyball is nestled in one corner. Nishinoya’s away game uniform peeks out of the other, a vibrant blue and white.

Ennoshita pauses in the middle of taking off his shoes. Air is momentarily very difficult to get in, and then suddenly there’s too much of it in his lungs.

Nishinoya’s _home._ The evidence, now that Ennoshita straightens up and looks around his apartment, is everywhere: there are Nishinoya’s shoes—scuffed and worn and vividly red—kicked to one side of the _genkan_ ; a small suitcase, tipped to one side, in their bedroom; a blue track jacket abandoned on the kitchen table, for whatever reason.

Ennoshita sets the takeout he’d gotten next to the jacket and closes his eyes. Nishinoya had been adamant about Ennoshita getting out on time; Ennoshita thought it was because of their weekly phone call but it was _this_.

The shower is running, and part of him wants to barge in because—because, _well_. It’s been ages since he last saw Nishinoya, and it's unfair to spring this on him unexpectedly, but he wants Nishinoya in his arms immediately. But he contents himself with heating up the kettle and frowning at the contents of the fridge when he realizes his takeout isn’t going to be enough for the two of them.

He’s curled on the couch with a mug of tea when the water shuts off and Nishinoya emerges from the bathroom.

“Chikara!” Nishinoya says, in one of Ennoshita’s shirts, with a towel around his shoulders. It always seems a little unreal, when Nishinoya comes back. Just yesterday, Ennoshita had seen him through the screen of his phone on a rerun of a post-season interview, and now he was in their apartment. “You’re earlier than—”

Ennoshita interrupts him by wrapping him in a tight hug, pressing his face into the crook of Nishinoya’s neck. Water drips from Nishinoya’s short hair, but Ennoshita can’t find it in himself to mind. “Hi, Yuu,” he says, against damp skin.

Nishinoya’s arms wrap around his shoulders. He squeezes, hard. “Missed me, huh?”

_Obviously_ , Ennoshita doesn’t say. _Every day_ , Ennoshita doesn’t say. These are things Nishinoya knows, just like Ennoshita knows it to be true for Nishinoya. He straightens up, running a stray hand through Nishinoya’s wet hair. He tugs, lightly. “You should have told me you were coming.”

“I like surprises,” Nishinoya answers, easy. His hand trails from Ennoshita’s shoulder to the vertebrae of his neck to his jaw. His voice is soft when he asks, “How was this one?”

“Pretty good,” Ennoshita answers, equally soft. “You’re going to starve, though. I only brought enough food for myself.”

“And not gonna share? I thought you loved me,” Nishinoya says with mock hurt.

“Mm, guess we can walk to the _conbini_ ,” Ennoshita says, fighting down a grin. They can go shopping tomorrow, before Ennoshita’s afternoon shift at the clinic. Until they settled back into their between-seasons routine, something quick and microwavable would be enough.

Nishinoya’s face is still turned up to him. “Hey, Chikara?”

“Hm?”

Nishinoya’s voice is quiet and warm. “I’m back.”

Ennoshita gently tilts Nishinoya’s chin towards him. “Welcome home.”

  
  
Ennoshita is bent over his physiology notes, two textbooks and an array of highlighters pushed to one side of the table, when his roommate says, “Wait, isn’t that Nishinoya-kun?”

Ennoshita looks up and across the common room, to the TV that was mounted to the wall. Satorou, his roommate, and him are the only ones in the common room at this time of night—Satorou ostensibly studying for his biology lab, Ennoshita for his physiology exam.

The TV is muted—it almost always is—but Ennoshita wouldn’t need to hear his voice to know that it’s Nishinoya on the screen. It’s a rerun from earlier in the season, one of Nishinoya’s first games on a professional team. Ennoshita watches as the rally drags on, Nishinoya running an endless loop of sprint, receive and follow.

The night of them game, Ennoshita had texted a screenshot of him watching it live to Nishinoya. He’d watched on his laptop, lab report neglected, as an increasingly familiar combination of pride and longing lodged itself in his throat. He was proud of Nishinoya, but he missed him. He loved volleyball, but he didn’t love it the way every person on every professional team in this league and beyond did. 

He didn’t miss it, though, the way he did in high school. Mostly it’s nostalgic. Ennoshita flicks his gaze away from the TV and back to his notes on arteries, says, “I did say he was a volleyball player.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t—I thought you meant like, at the collegiate level!” Satorou says it accusingly, and Ennoshita only spares a small smile in his direction. “He’s actually _super good_ , isn’t he?”

Satorou says this just as another long rally comes to an end with a satisfying block that lands on the opposing team’s court. The cheer of Nishinoya’s team echoes even without sound.

Ennoshita gives up, for a moment, to watch the camera pan across the team’s face as they reassemble for another serve. Nishinoya absently wipes at his forehead, and Ennoshita smiles into his hand. “Yeah, he is.”

  
  
  


Ennoshita intends to wait until graduation, he really does. Because it’s more final that way, and when Nishinoya—inevitably, he reminds himself, _invariably_ —rejects him, it will be that much easier to let the feelings that have accumulated in him evaporate. It’s so much _smarter._

Instead, Ennoshita is waiting for Nishinoya outside of the clubroom to confess now. They officially retired from the club today, and graduation is only a few short weeks away. Ennoshita could wait. He _could_ , yet when they were saying their goodbyes to the team—his team, still, maybe forever—all Ennoshita could think was that if today was going to be about endings, he might as well get this over with, too.

So now it is. It’s just as well, because Nishinoya is bounding out of the clubroom, his sweatsuit jacket tied around his waist, before Ennoshita can even think about leaving.

“Hey,” he says when he catches sight of Ennoshita, leaning against the stairwell. His eyes drop to Ennoshita’s hands, which are currently strangling each other, then rise back to his face. He holds out a hand, for some reason, and says, “D’you wanna stop by the _conbini_ with me?”

Ennoshita stares at the outstretched hand, puzzled. “Okay,” he says, and doesn’t move. Nishinoya wiggles his fingers at him, and this more than anything convinces Ennoshita that he hasn’t somehow hallucinated this whole interaction.

“Why do you want to hold my hand?” Ennoshita asks. His voice comes out a little funny, and he’s overly aware of the sweat on his palms.

“Secret,” Nishinoya says, and wiggles his fingers again.

Ennoshita dislodges his hands, and says, “I had something to tell you.” He doesn’t take Nishinoya’s hand.

Behind Nishinoya, the other teammates are coming out of the clubroom. They still call Ennoshita _captain_ as they walk away, swallowed by streetlights and the night sky. Nishinoya hollers his goodbyes, and Ennoshita waves at them until their backs turn.

“Something important?” Nishinoya asks, taking Ennoshita’s hand of his own volition. He starts walking, and Ennoshita follows. It’s not like he can do anything else: Ennoshita’s never been able to shake off Nishinoya. At some point, never wanted to.

“Very,” Ennoshita says, staring at their hands. Nishinoya’s always been tactile, but Ennoshita has never seen him hold hands with anyone. Their pace is unhurried, and Nishinoya swings their joined hands between them, humming.

Ennoshita doesn’t know how to follow up his statement. All of his carefully prepared words have abandoned him, leaving him with only the rib-breaking warmth in his chest. He sighs, a soft noise that is lost in the sound of their easy footsteps. Words come and go as he struggles to think of something to say, as their feet take them down a worn and familiar path to Ukai’s _conbini_.

There has to be an easier way than words, Ennoshita thinks. A truer way to explain than words. Ennoshita doesn't have words, he has emotions. He has birds always mid-flight. He has dozens of cherry blossom petals, caught in the wind. He has scorching sun rays ripping through thin curtains. His hands are illuminated with them.

He squeezes Nishinoya’s hand and comes to a stop just beyond a streetlight. He means to pull his hand free from Nishinoya’s, he _does,_ but Nishinoya’s grip tightens when he tries.

Nishinoya stops as well, head tilted. He’s no longer humming, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t let go of Ennoshita’s hand, either. There’s a glint in his eyes that suggests he _won’t_ let go, that he’ll fight tooth and nail to keep their palms joined.

Ennoshita inhales, sharp. Hope is a ravenous thing inside of him, but that’s the thing about being close to Nishinoya. He makes anything seem possible.

He takes two steps closer to Nishinoya. They're between two streetlights now, caught at the fringes of its glow. That makes it easier, somehow, for Ennoshita to say, "You know, I've been watching you for a long time."

Nishinoya smiles, the glint of hardness in his eyes melting away. He steps closer. "Funny," he says, and maybe it is. "'Cause I've never been able to take my eyes off you."

This is a revelation, one that resonates deep at the back of Ennoshita's mind. He wonders how long they’ve been dancing around this, how often the answer had been laid between the two. It gives Ennoshita enough confidence to ask, "Be my boyfriend?"

Everything is illuminated when Nishinoya smiles.

  
  
  


The forecast tonight called for snow, starting right around when school let out and suspected to last until nightfall. Ennoshita had watched the white flakes pass by the high windows in the gym without interest, but when Tanaka throws open the gym doors after practice, it’s to find crystalline whiteness already piled ankle deep.

It feels too late in the season for this much snow. In a few short weeks, Ennoshita will return to Karasuno as a third-year, and welcome a handful of new players to the team. Maybe more than that—Ennoshita is trying to be hopeful that their rise to Nationals would inspire others to gather here.

“Be careful on your way home!” he calls as his teammates file out. The kinetic energy following their loss had been all-encompassing, both joyous and crushing, and only now, as February was steadily coming to a close, did it feel like things were settling again.

He’s the last to go, locking up the gym and following the tracks from the gym to the clubroom. The light’s still on; when Ennoshita opens the door, Nishinoya is seated against the wall, frowning at a notebook. Ennoshita recognizes it immediately; Shimizu left it for Yachi, a meticulous compilation of notes on each member of the team.

“You haven’t left yet?” he asks, changing back into his uniform on autopilot.

“Wanted to finish this before I hafta give it back to Yachi-san tomorrow,” Nishinoya says in a distracted mumble. There are brightly colored page tabs along its edge, and Nishinoya flips between them as he reads. He's reading it with closer attention than Ennoshita did, when he was talking with Ukai about plans for next season.

"You couldn't have finished at home?" Ennoshita asks, fitting a knit hat over his sweat-stiff hair. He jangles the keys to indicate he's ready to lock up, and Nishinoya stands with a wordless stretch.

“Wanted t' walk with you,” Nishinoya answers easily. He takes care to put the notebook in his bag without bending it. “Yanno, you don’t always have to be the one to lock up.”

With a shrug, Ennoshita locks up the clubroom and they set off. “Are you offering to do it instead?”

The snow is soft under their feet, weightless and pristine. It muffles their voices as they talk, pant legs growing damp and noses red. Ennoshita kicks at the clean piles of snow next to his footsteps, watching with satisfaction at the neat lines are disrupted.

“Let’s make snow angels,” Nishinoya says, apropos of nothing. He tears off to the nearest large section of untouched snow and falls backwards into it, his bag an black blob above his head. White puffs upwards and glitters as it falls around him.

“Seriously?” Ennoshita asks, to the air. Nishinoya windmills his arms and legs wildly as Ennoshita approaches. Laughter bubbles up from his belly, and he crouches at the base of Nishinoya’s snow angel with a snicker.

“C’mon, it’s fun!” Nishinoya waves a hand towards the patch of snow next to him. “Chikara, you’re thinking too much.”

“And this helps with that?” Ennoshita’s voice is wry, but he nevertheless crawls forward to land next to Nishinoya. He waves his arms and legs experimentally, and grimaces at the night sky. “This feels ridiculous.”

“Yeah,” Nishinoya answers with a laugh. “That’s how it works.”

He turns his head, grin half-obscured by the snow between them. Ennoshita finds himself grinning back, his cheeks burning despite the frigid air.

Nishinoya stands first, brushing snow off of himself halfheartedly. He’s still talking—something about graduation, something about what the team should do for Asahi and Daichi and Suga and Shimizu, people as vital as organs and yet, going, already gone—and Ennoshita nods and hums as he watches him. He stays where he is, his lungs working to inhale the difficult, cold air.

Nishinoya offers both hands to him, the moon golden behind his head. His scarf is haphazard around his neck, and his cheeks are bright with cold, and snowflakes cling to the crown of his head and the tops of his shoulders. The stars above them are a brilliant, blinding white, and Ennoshita thinks they may be the most beautiful he’s ever seen.

Everything above him is radiant, and when Ennoshita reaches his hands up to take Nishinoya’s, he half-expects to meet starlight instead of boy.

But Nishinoya’s grip is firm and his tug nearly pulls Ennoshita’s arms out of his sockets. He complains, and Nishinoya apologizes, and Ennoshita rather suspects that, if given the chance, he would happily spend the rest of his life in this warm space carved out next to Nishinoya.

Ennoshita takes a step closer. He wraps Nishinoya’s scarf firmly around his neck. He pretends to not know what this feeling means. “You’ll be useless to me with the flu, you know.”

Nishinoya catches Ennoshita’s gloved hands and keeps them there, right at the base of his neck. “I’d never be useless to you, Chikara.”

The snow under them shines like gems under the moonlight. It lights them both from the ground up.

Ennoshita smiles despite himself. “I suppose we’ll see about that.”

**Author's Note:**

> i love ennonoya thanks for coming to yet another iteration of this tedtalk. also there are over 50 fics in the tag now!!! can you believe?
> 
> kudos and comments always appreciated :>


End file.
